Man who burnt 'Jewish' effigy handed 10-month sentence
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
21.11.2016 16:25
A man who burnt an effigy of a Jew in western Poland in November 2015, was handed a 10-month jail sentence on Monday.
The effigy was burnt on the city's main square. Photo: Video screenshot/Jerusalem Times
Piotr R. (name withheld under Polish privacy laws) was found guilty of inciting hatred on grounds of ethnicity by burning an effigy symbolising a Jew at the market square in the city of Wrocław during an anti-immigration rally last year.
Judge Marek Górny said that: “The ruling is harsh, because it was an act of serious social harm [...] The penalty must be proportionate to the action”.
Following the incident in November last year, when a group of nationalists burnt the effigy of a Hasidic Jew dressed in traditional clothing, peot (side curls) and cap, chief Rabbi in Poland, Michael Schudrich, told the Jerusalem Post that: “Hatred for migrants comes from the same place as the classic hatred for Jews.”
After coming to power in October 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) party said it was unhappy at the agreement by the former government led by the Civic Platform to accept 7,000 migrants as part of an EU-wide programme to resettle some 150,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea who are in camps in Italy and Greece. (rg)